Gary Oldman is looking back at the intense experience of making Bram Stoker’s Dracula. More than three decades later, the actor admits he frequently clashed with director Francis Ford Coppola. Still, Oldman does not seem bitter about their creative battles. Instead, he says the experience taught him how to work with directors whose methods can get a little “nuts.”
Gary Oldman looks back on going ‘nuts’ and clashing with Francis Ford Coppola while making Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Oldman opened up about the 1992 horror classic during a Toronto International Film Festival panel. He called working with Coppola “a good experience,” but admitted their personalities sometimes collided. “We sometimes would come together and we’d butt heads,” Oldman said, according to Entertainment Weekly.
Part of the tension came from Coppola’s unconventional directing style. Oldman recalled that Coppola would sometimes speak to him during a take and call out directions while the cameras kept rolling.
The actor also acknowledged his own role in their disagreements. Oldman said he was “a little more combative” when he was younger. With age, he learned that constantly battling a director only makes the work harder.
That lesson led to his memorable assessment of filmmakers. “We’re all a bit nuts,” Oldman joked before describing directors as brilliant but often strange.
Oldman said actors eventually have to understand how each filmmaker works. Some might demand 100 takes, while others use completely different methods. His approach now is to adapt and “surrender to the process.”
Despite their clashes, the Gary Oldman Dracula feud did not last. Oldman later asked Coppola for permission to use an Apocalypse Now clip in one of his own films. Coppola let him use it for free. The two later crossed paths at Cannes and made peace.
The experience clearly did not diminish Oldman’s respect for the movie. He originally accepted Dracula largely because Coppola was directing it.
The film also became one of Oldman’s most recognizable performances. The British Film Institute lists him alongside Winona Ryder and Anthony Hopkins in Coppola’s lavish adaptation.
For Oldman, the Francis Ford Coppola Dracula experience now sounds less like a lasting feud and more like a difficult lesson from an ambitious production.
